About

Dimensions Variable is an Exhibition Space in Miami Committed to the Presentation and Support of Contemporary Art

Mission

Dimensions Variable (DV) is an exhibition space in Miami committed to the presentation and support of contemporary art. Through a collaborative exchange with artists and institutions, DV develops an exhibition program that engages the community and promotes new and experimental ideas. We engage diverse audiences and advance contemporary art through exhibitions, projects, lectures and educational programming.

Co-directors

Frances Trombly

Founder & Director
+1 305 606 0058

Frances Trombly was born in 1976 in Miami, FL where she currently lives and works. She received a Bachelors of Fine Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD. Selected exhibitions consist of Frances Trombly: Over and Under at Locust Projects, Miami, included in Americana: Formalizing Craft, Perez Art Museum Miami and united states, The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT. Her work has been featured in various publications including The New York Times, Art Papers, Sculpture Magazine, Surface Design Journal, and The Los Angeles Times. Trombly’s work is in permanent collections of the Perez Art Museum Miami and Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida among other institutions. She is represented by Emerson Dorsch, Miami, FL and Shoshana Wayne Gallery, Santa Monica, CA. Frances also co-directs Dimensions Variable, an artist-run exhibition space in Miami, FL.

History

Dimensions Variable (DV) was founded in 2009 by artists Frances Trombly and Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova who currently function as Co-directors.

After sharing a studio donated by Craig Robins of Dacra in the Miami Design District, Frances and Leyden decided to open an official project space named after a short-lived blog they created a year before called Dimensions Variable. They designated the front area of their studio space as a small gallery and started inviting artists to produce site-specific projects. On September 8, 2009, DV opening its first project—a two-person exhibition titled Build-up with Shane Aslan Selzer and Tom Scicluna.

During our time in the Miami Design District, many projects were presented by Agustina Woodgate, Domingo Castillo, Felecia Chizuko Carlisle, Daniel Milewski, Felice Grodin, Samantha Salzinger, Magnus Sigurdarson, and more. In 2011, DV was awarded a John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Knight Arts Challenge Grant. The Grant allowed us to collaborate more with other partners like The Fountainhead Residency and Cannonball to bring more international artists to Miami.

In 2012, DV became nomadic due to the progressing development in the Miami Design District that was reclaimed our space. We worked with the Miami Design District to collaborate on projects around the district until we secured a new home. Finally, in September of 2012, we secured a new donated space and studios from Miami World Center in Downtown Miami. This new warehouse complex was shared between several arts organizations and named Downtown Art House. This new space came with a larger gallery allowing artists to produce more ambitious projects and letting us program larger group exhibitions. Artists invited to this new space included Julie Hill, Antoine Lefebvre, Carolyn Salas, P. Scott Cunningham, Jude Broughan, Goran Tomcic, Nicholas des Cognets, Mike Calway-Fagen, Janelle Iglesias, Tom Scicluna, Daníel Björnsson, Ragnar Helgi Ólafsson, Ingibjörg Sigurjónsdóttir, Anna Hrund Másdóttir, Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir, Magnus Sigurdarson, Fabian Peña, Margrethe Aanestad, Elizabeth Withstandley, and more. In 2015, DV was awarded a WaveMaker Grant supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs. We also organized successful fundraisers during this time further adding to our program’s budget.

In the summer of 2015, once again DV was notified we would be losing our donated space. The Miami World Center development was moving forward and we need to find a new home. This presented a fork in the road for DV. Either we moved to a rented or donated space in the newly gentrifying art neighborhood of Little Haiti or we continued to discuss new ways of donating space in already gentrified Downtown Miami. We felt it was important to collaborate with public or private entities to cultivate support for DV through donations. In our case, the donation of space. Luckily, we stirred the interest of Miami Dade College who responded to our proposals by donating a historic gallery on the 3rd floor of the MDC Wolfson Campus in Downtown Miami.

In December 2015, an agreement was reached between DV and MDC securing an 8-year agreement for DV to occupy the history Centre Gallery space. We are incredibly thankful to Jeremy Mikolajczak, Eduardo J. Padrón, and Alberto Ibargüen for making this history relationship possible. For most of 2016, we have spent it working out details and renovating the new gallery space in MDC. Our new home will have three studios and a large gallery. We are looking forward to opening our first project and everything the new space has in store.

Throughout the years, many artists in the community have supported DV early on, including Wendy Wischer and Christina Lei Rodriguez and later Adler Guerrier who joined DV from 2012—2015. We are thankful to all the people who have pitched in and helped us all these years.